


Mirrored Generations

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Politics, References to Suicide, Royalty, generations, legacy, mirror, references to death, reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29098011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Five generations of Contes stare into a mirror and define themselves as rulers.
Relationships: Daneline of Jesslaw/Jasson I of Conté, Lianne I of Conté/Roald I of Conté, Roald II of Conté/Shinkokami of Conté
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Mirrored Generations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Malorie's Peak Prompt "Mirror" at Goldenlake.

Jasson (The Conqueror) 

Prince Jasson stood staring into the mirror glass that glared back at him in the bedchamber he shared with his wife, Daneline. His eyes, storm-tossed seas, were blue as his father’s, and his hair, black as defeat—as despair—, were another dark inheritance from his father. Glowering at his reflection in the implacable mirror, he wished not for the first time that he had inherited less of his weak father’s features lest men should think him weak instead of strong when they looked upon him. Jasson wanted to radiate power as the sun did heat. He wanted to burn the eyes of any who dared to look upon him too directly or for too long. 

“Father’s incompetent generals have cost us both sides of the Drell and twenty miles of what should be our territory,” Jasson raged as much to his mirror as to his wife. His right hand clenched into a fist and lifted as if to grasp and raise a sword for battle. How he longed to lead Tortall’s armies into battle—into victory—across the Drell, but his father forbade it. His father feared his strength because his father was a cringing coward who bent before his enemies rather than resisting them with proud defiance as a Conte should. “They are forever drunk just like he is, and they couldn’t win a battle to save their worthless lives or to restore Tortall’s honor. Instead they heap shame after shame on Tortall, allowing our neighbors to steal piece after piece of our land. It’ll be a miracle if there’s any kingdom left for me to inherit at this rate.” 

“There will be a kingdom for you to inherit.” Daneline might have been a weak woman, but somehow she managed to project more bravery—more strength—than Father and his generals ever had, Jasson thought as she stood behind him, spine straight as a marching soldier’s. “When you inherit it, you can restore it to glory, polish its tarnished reputation. You can reclaim all that was lost to Tusaine, and bards will sing your praises for generations.” 

Jasson snorted. He didn’t care about the bards. Singing was for women who loved their romantic ballads of heroic knights rescuing damsels in distress and handsome princes kissing fair maidens. The only music that mattered to him was the drumbeat of horses hooves charging into war and the rousing, roaring battle cry of men about to spit in death’s face. That was what war was, he thought. Spitting in death’s face. 

“The bards can sing whatever they like. I won’t listen to it.” He kissed his wife. Not gently but roughly. He was never gentle, not even with his wife or any other member of the frailer, fairer sex. Gentleness could too easily be confused with weakness, and he would never give anyone a reason to regard him, however mistakenly, as anything less than strong. He bit Daneline’s lip, smiling as he tasted the iron tang of her blood melting into his tongue. “I’ll reclaim not just all the lands we lost from Tusaine, but I’ll conquer even more as interest for the territory they dared to steal from us. Tortall will be avenged, that is my solemn oath and duty.” 

He gazed into the mirror again. He had wanted his chin to be locked in a position of unshakeable, boulder-hard certainty as he made this final pronouncement, but he was furious to see it was instead trembling. Trembling with anger, of course, and not with fear. Never with fear. Jasson had never been afraid of anything in his entire life. Even the shame his father had brought to their proud realm and lineage only provoked wrath, not fear, in him. 

Yet, he knew that trembling jaw could be too easily mistaken for fear by someone who lived outside his own body. Who did not know how brave and strong he was on the inside. Who could only see how, like his weak father’s, his chin trembled like grass in a gust of wind. 

At that moment, staring at the wobbly, traitorous chin he had inherited from his father, Jasson hated his father as much as he did his own weak flesh. He would be strong despite his chin, he swore to himself. He would be everything his father had failed to be. He would leave behind a conqueror’s legacy for future generations of Contes to marvel at and grow. 

Roald (The Peacemaker) 

Roald stared into the calm glass surface of the mirror he shared with his wife, Lianne, and wished he could be that serene himself. Instead there was a lingering lightning flash in the temperamental blue eyes he had inherited from his father. The blue eyes that always burned like the hottest part of a flame, scorching into his son, his wife, his generals, his advisors, and his citizens. Searing and scarring any who made contact with it. The blazing blue eyes that were the face of exactly the sort of raging king Roald never wanted to be. Exactly the sort of wrathful king he had been tonight. Exactly the sort of king that terrified people into submission instead of allowing compromise, decorum, and peace to prevail. 

“I was angry tonight.” Roald’s voice shook, but not with rage. With regret for his lack of control and fear of the destructive power of his own fury. 

“Not without reason.” Lianne kneaded his shoulders as a chef might bread, releasing the tension knotted into his muscles. “Never without reason. You are the king, and sometimes your people must be made to fear your wrath, or else they wouldn’t obey you. People expect to be cowed by their king sometimes.” 

That sounded like typical practical Naxen political advice, and it should have been a comfort to him, but instead the word “cowed” echoed in his ears. 

“I didn’t scare you did I, my dear?” He hoped that he could hear the pain and concern baked into his voice. “I’d never want to scare you.” 

The last thing he would ever want to do was scare his wife, Mithros and the Goddess knew. Especially when her health had always been questionable, and she was trying to avoid another miscarriage that ended in a bloody bed, bitter tears, and no new life added to the world. 

“You never do scare me.” Lianne favored him with her sweet smile, and Roald felt as if a weight had been lifted from his chest. “You’re always very gentle with me, my love.” 

Gentle. That virtue Roald had always admired and strove to cultivate in himself toward his people, his wife, and his child if he should ever be blessed with one. That virtue his father had despised above all others, dismissing it as a weakness instead of the greatest strength. 

“I’ll be a gentle ruler. I won’t govern by rage like my father,” Roald promised himself and the unruffled mirror as much as his wife. “I’ll bring a peace my father never could to this realm he ripped apart for his own pride in war after war.” 

He would not be a warmonger, but a peacemaker. Generations in Tortall would remember him for that. What more valuable legacy could there be than peace throughout the land from the Drell to the Emerald Ocean? 

Jonathan (The Magnificent) 

Jon stood a grim figure all dressed in mourning black in front of his mirror before another court dinner. With his mother and father buried side by side in the cold Conte crypts, he had no appetite, but for the sake of his nobles and his uneasy realm he had to pretend a hunger and a confidence he didn’t have. 

“How do I look, Gary?” Jon’s gaze flicked to his cousin, who was standing behind him, helping him to prepare for dinner. 

Jon had hoped that Gary would say he looked elegant in black and not at all like a pale, reanimated corpse like Duke Roger. 

“You won’t be offended by an honest answer?” Gary’s eyebrow arched in a wry question mark. 

“You wouldn’t be any good as my advisor if you didn’t always answer me honestly.” Jon snorted. He supposed it was a testament to sharp-tongued Gary’s newfound maturity that he had asked instead of bursting out with whatever impertinent remark crossed his mind. “And you wouldn’t be the closest thing I have to a brother if you worried about offending me.” 

“Well said.” Gary bestowed a hearty clap on his shoulder. “In that case, you look more likely to crumble than many of the ruined arches and aqueducts left behind by the Old Ones.”

“The Old Ones built their arches and aqueducts to last forever.” Jon frowned at the shadows under his eyes and wondered if there was any way to erase them. Maybe one of the court ladies would know that trick, but he didn’t have time to chat and flirt with the beautiful ladies flitting about the court like butterflies any more. He had a country to try to pull away from the brink of disaster with a resurrected disloyal Duke Roger, a dead queen likely killed as a result of Duke Roger’s magical machinations, and a dead king whose hunting accident bore a disquieting resemblance to suicide. “The gods didn’t build me to last forever. The gods didn’t build any man or woman to last forever.” 

“No need to get all philosophical about it. There’s a reason everyone slept through our philosophy classes as pages.” Gary gave Jon’s shoulder a slightly softer slap. “You’re on your feet and that’s all the country requires from you right now. You staying on your feet and proving that you’re resilient enough not to crack under the pressure of the present times.” 

“Staying on my feet will be my watchword.” Jon’s lips quirked. “I’ll keep myself together at dinner and always. That is the promise I make to you and all my people.” 

He would never allow himself to appear anything less than kept together no matter how much he felt like collapsing inside. He would be the most charming, the most charismatic, and the most magnificent king. His people would never have cause to doubt his determination to endure through any obstacles and griefs he encountered in his reign. His heart might break, but he would not. He would persevere through his pain as his father couldn’t. 

Roald (The Just) 

Roald stared at his reflection in the mirror and wondered whether his people saw the same person when they looked at him as he did when he gazed into the eternally reflective glass of his bedchamber mirror. 

Dedicated to presenting as perfect an image as possible to the ever-judgmental world, he tucked an errant hair back into its proper place and smoothed a piece of satin on his sleeves that had gotten rumpled. It wouldn’t do to appear before his court with wrinkled sleeves like a rambunctious page. A king was expected to be stately if nothing else. 

He would have to make a judgment between two disputing nobles today who each had many ardent supporters at court, and that always gave him a nervous headache worrying if he would be seen as truly impartial and unbiased as a king should be in his decision. 

“Shinko?” In the mirror, he lifted his gaze to his wife, who seemed as tranquil as ever slipping into a silk gown embroidered with cranes in an effortless, un-clashing fusion of Tortallan and Yamani styles. “Do you think my people see me as fair?” 

He didn’t think he could look at himself in the mirror if he wasn’t fair. If his people didn’t perceive him as fair. Fairness was the most important thing for a king to be, he believed in his bones after years of seeing how his father’s favoritism had created deep divisions and resentments in Tortall. People desired a fair king—one who was truly committed to justice however much it hurt him—Roald was convinced, and he was determined to be the fair king his father had never been capable of being. 

“They call you the Just, don’t they?” Shinko’s eyes crinkled at him in a gentle smile. “I doubt they would call you the Just if they saw you as anything other than fair.” 

“Good.” Roald nodded and went back to adjusting the small details of his clothing. His father—dashing and daring to his death— wouldn’t have cared about how the nobles saw him. He would only have cared about doing whatever he regarded as right. 

Roald, however, was cut from a different cloth as the seamstress Lalasa might phrase it. He cared about what everyone thought of him. That was probably both a strength and a weakness, he decided with what he hoped was that elusive, perfect impartiality and balance which he constantly strove to embody and maintain. 

Lianokami (The Great) 

Lian, resplendent in a purple gown trimmed with the ermine of royalty, stood in front of her gilded mirror before her coronation. 

In the mirror, she could see herself as the product of generations of royal and imperial breeding in Tortall and the Yamani Islands. She embodied their ambitions, lived their legacies, and fused their best traits into one complex, contradictory being who embraced her own idiosyncracies. 

She had her grandmother’s indomitable will and boundless spirit. She had her grandfather’s iron determination and openness to change. She had her father’s tendency toward diplomacy and resolve to always be as just as possible. She had her mother’s unwavering grace, admiration of balance and precision, and occasionally ruthless approach to politics that came from the imperial blood that flowed blue as her father’s eyes through her veins. 

She was descended from a long line of kings, but she would be the first queen to rule Tortall in her own right and not in the name of a dead husband or a son who had yet to come of age. 

“You are beautiful.” Her mother, the ink in her hair long ago faded to rice paper white, hung droplets studded with amethysts in Lian’s ears. “You will make a great queen. Your father would be proud of you if he could see you now.” 

“I know.” There was a tightness in Lian’s throat as she remembered her father, who had never been stinting with his praise toward her and had always taken pride in her achievements. He had always had faith in her, making it simple and natural for her to believe in herself. 

She felt as if her father were looking at her now with his customary expression of quiet approval for everything she did as if the mirror were a bridge between the Peaceful Realms and the world of the living Lian inhabited with her mother. 

“Generations will call me Lianokami the Great,” she vowed to her father, her mother, and the mirror that connected them all, establishing the epithet that she hoped would define her and her reign.


End file.
